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Turnpike Troubadours shared a collection of warm photographs from a recording session on 15th September.
The photos show, Evan Felker playing guitar although only the back of Bryan’s head makes it into shot. The caption and song attached to the post confirms it is, indeed, Zach Bryan.
The collaboration comes in hot on the heels of the announcement of Bryan's upcoming EP Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs. The official release date to this mysterious project is still under wraps, but it's rumoured to be arriving in October.
While there is no song-title, release date or explanation, the song attached to Turnpike's post is probably the biggest clue... Zach Bryan’s ‘East Side Of Sorrow’. But we only know half the story as Bryan has no social media presence to offer anything from his side. But it’s clearly (hopefully) a new collaboration in the making.
If it is (and we’re pretty convinced) their first official song together, it has been a long time coming given the backstory to the relationship between these two alt-country trailblazers.
The relationship between these two didn’t begin when they were playing stadiums. Zach appears to have met Turnpike guitarist Ryan Engleman when Bryan was just 18, got “way too drunk” and ended up sharing a jail cell with him in Oklahoma.
Years later, after Bryan’s career had started taking off, Engleman sent him a 5 word letter saying “Stay out of jail, fucker.”
Not only that, but Bryan was writing about Turnpike long before most people even knew his name. When the band stepped away in 2019 as Felker battled some personal problems, Bryan recorded a heartfelt, still-unreleased song called ‘Felker’, essentially asking one of his songwriting heroes to get well and come back because he still had stories left to tell.
Maybe the song reached Evan as he got sober, Turnpike reunited and returned with their first album in six years, A Cat in the Rain. Bryan celebrated their comeback in ‘East Side of Sorrow’ with the lyric “I heard Turnpike’s back together and they’re writing songs.” That is what makes the song choice on this post feel poignant. ‘East Side of Sorrow’ was Bryan announcing that Turnpike had found their way back. Three years later, they have used it to tease what appears to be a recording with him.
Bryan's self-titled album and A Cat in the Rain were also released on exactly the same day in August 2023, but there was never any rivalry. Bryan has always been very clear about where Turnpike sit for him. When they played before him at Buckeye Country Superfest in 2024, he called them his “favourite band in the entire world” and admitted that having to follow them onto the stage felt “pretty weird”.
Turnpike then joined selected dates on Bryan’s Quittin’ Time Tour, before supporting his huge shows at Dublin’s Phoenix Park, BST Hyde Park and Golden Gate Park in 2025.
Turnpike were Oklahoma and Red Dirt heroes while Bryan was still an unknown songwriter recording songs on his phone. He wrote about them when they disappeared, celebrated when they came back, brought them in front of his stadium audiences and eventually joined them on stage. But what hasn’t yet happened is releasing a studio recording together. That is why this matters, and why the story means it will likely be deeply sincere, emotive and unmistakably Bryan and Turnpike.
The band Zach Bryan spent years as a fan, then years singing about, and even did a bit of jail time with, are reunited in the best possible creative way. What a brilliant full circle moment, for fans and Bryan alike.
